Card show swag: the old stuff

We have a collegiate baseball team in our area that plays during the summer. The team is made up of players from various colleges trying to keep their skills sharp when school isn't in session.

The games don't attract a huge crowd -- we used to have professional baseball in our town, after all. So, each year they try to bring on a player or two who is from the area, to get some of the people out to watch the hometown kid.

I wonder if that is what the Montreal Expos did with Claude Raymond. He pitched for years for the Astros and then the Braves before he became the first native French-Canadian to play for the Expos in 1970. He led the team in saves that year. The following year he was 1-7, and it was his last season. This, I believe, is his last card.

I got it at the card show last weekend, along with a bunch of other 1971s, some of which I will show later.

I tracked down some other vintage needs, too. This card show, like most of the card shows I go to, was all about the oldies. I think I might have gotten a few readers concerned by what I picked up at the last card show I attended. I find good stuff in old and new cards, but my heart lies with vintage. It always will.

One of the first binders I stopped at was the 1975 Topps binder. I have owned the complete set for four years now. But I have started a new blog devoted to my favorite set (check it out if you haven't already). So I felt the need to upgrade some of my '75 cards, which has been a continuing quest since I first finished off the set.

Some of the upgrades involved Dodgers for the team binder. I think I'm down to needing four or five '75 Dodgers for the binder now. Mostly obscure players like Ken McMullen and Eddie Solomon.

The rest of the '75 upgrades involved random cards that were bugging me. Off-center cards. Cards with blotches. Cards with creases. This Bill Plummer card had a major crease down the right side that I never noticed until looking at my cards years later. It jumped out at me. It was so creased there was practically a hole in the card. Crisis now averted.

I once tried to get ahold of Plummer for an interview. He was managing a kid who was the subject of a story I was writing. But the kid, notorious for not enjoying the interview process, never returned my call. So I didn't get to talk to Plummer either.

I then made a brief detour to the 1976 Topps set. I am so close to finishing this set that I could have bought every card that I needed at the card show and been done with it. But I'm not that focused. I'm not really feeling the '76 cards right now. So I picked up some upgrades and four cards that I didn't have yet and that was it.

The two most interesting of those four are the Seaver record-breaker card (there's something weird about the batter in the foreground -- is that helmet airbrushed. Why? It's very strange) ...

... and the Joe Torre card. This Torre card brings up an interesting (for me) question. I'm wondering what is the longest time between me seeing a card and actually obtaining it. For this card, it was 33 years between point A and point B. That could be a record.

The first thing I asked for when I got to the card show was one dealer's 1969 Topps binder. I thought I had completed the Dodgers team set from that year quite some time ago. But then Wrigley Wax posted this checklist card featuring Don Drysdale, and you should have seen the crestfallen look on my face. It kind of looked like Dandy Don up there. So, this is the first card I got at the show. '69 Dodgers set complete. AGAIN.

The only card I got that wasn't on the list that I brought. A 1964 binder was just sitting there, with the leader cards resting right on top. Sandy Koufax is all over those leaders cards. Since, most Koufax cards are out of my price range right now, I had to get this one. Koufax and Drysdale? Sweet.

OK, now it's nothing but '71s from this point forward. I got some '71s from two tables. One table is my first stop. Always. The other table I've never been to before.

But that second table had a bunch of '71s just sitting out in the open. The sign said 50 cards for $10. That's 20 cents a card. Now, normally, '71s unprotected by sleeves is a bad thing. The black borders are evil, I tell ya. But I was hit by a revelation: I'm trying to complete the set. If I can find these cards in relatively decent shape, then why not get as many as I can for a good price?

So that's what I did. I picked up my 50 and the guy threw in 5 more for free. At one point, he told me that there were no high numbers in the bin, and pointed me to a box of '71 high numbers that were more costly. I nodded and kept looking. I found high numbers in the bin. Not the super high numbers (644-752), but everything else, including the ones he had in his more costly box. I know what I'm doing Mr. Dealer Man.

Here are some of my favorites:

I'm showing this guy because he looks like that comedian that does John Madden imitations, Frank Caliendo, who WTBS advertised endlessly a postseason or two ago. LeMaster was mostly a pitcher for the Braves in the '60s.

This card explains why I am not only a team collector, but a set collector. Why should I let the White Sox fans have all the fun? This card needs to be in my collection.

The A's always had great get-ups in the '70s. Gold uniforms and white windbreakers? Now that's style.

One thing you don't see on modern baseball cards is a player with a chaw in his mouth. I suppose it's healthier. But nothing says ballplayer more to me than a wad of tobacco in your cheek.

Two reasons for getting this card: the All-Star Rookie trophy and the fact that Les signed his name Les Sugar Cain.

And you've got to have some flair (or, shall we say, a touch of ego) to dot the I in your name with a star. No one is going to believe in you if you don't believe in yourself, isn't that right, Steve?

Last card: Three "Rookie Stars" named Reynolds. One of the first examples that Topps had a sense of humor. But the good kind of humor. Not the stealth, gimmick kind of humor. This is one of the semi-high numbered cards, and a few of those cards featured the bizarre, cartoon-like cap, which is painted on Archie Reynolds' head.

None of these players ended up being stars. Reynolds barely played for the Cubs, Angels and Brewers. Bob was the best of the bunch, becoming a quality reliever for the Orioles in '73 and '74. Ken Reynolds' most notable season was a miserable 2-15 year for the 1972 Phillies.

With the addition of all of these '71s I now have 75.6 percent of the set complete! Yay! The bad news is most of the rest of the cards are high numbers or crazy expensive stars like Munson, Mays and Aaron. So, I'm sure I'll be collecting this set for years to come.

The only other thing I picked up at the show were three boxes of cards from about a decade ago for one dollar. That's right: one dollar -- Ovation, Donruss Classics, stuff like that. The packs had been opened, searched for case hits and then inserted back into the packs. But all of the base cards and the inserts were still there, in great shape, and for a dollar, I got about 200 cards!

So, I'm liking this card show trip. I'm liking it a lot.